For those of you not in the know, I am in school for a Master's Program in Spiritual Psychology. The room is set up in trio format. This is a three seat seating arrangement so that when we go into our exercises we have a counselor, a client and a neutral observer. We cycle through each exercise three times to allow for each person to fill each role.

I wrote an article commemorating the 5 year anniversary of my rebirth (9/10/2004) and I opened that article with the following quote:

"And the Day came, when the risk of remaining tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom"

This, for me, is absolutely the place I was in coming into USM. It simply became too painful to hold in all the hurt. Now I find my heart and soul unfolding into the light and becoming so vibrant and healed.

My school believes that we have all the resources inside ourselves to find the answers and solutions to the pain and confusion of the past. My family history is abusive and this is the life I eventually came to live. I am sharing my discovery from the past 3 months of class because it relates to our Queen I find it very hard to even know the words to describe how hardcore and amazingly healing the experience has been for me, but here I will give it my best shot....

In school during the first month, we were doing some exploration and discovering a quality that is meaningful for us and then writing a personal affirmation around it. Three things came up for me. Honor, Allowance and Trust. Instinctively I knew none of them were my quality. It felt to me that they were either the by-product of the quality or the way to reach the quality. Then when we started doing the affirmation, and as I was trying to flesh mine out and write it down, "work" came forward for me. But again, instinctively I knew this wasn't right either.

Before we moved to the 4th trio, we did a treasure chest meditation. I went into this meditation very easily. In this meditation we were to be walking on a beach and come up to a treasure chest. When we opened it a gift would be inside that pertains to our quality. The thing that struck me about this meditation was the sand! It was pure gold. They were individual specks of sand but it was luxurious! It was the softest thing your feet ever felt, like walking on rabbit fur!

So I walk up to the treasure chest and when I opened it, I instantly recognized what was inside but as soon as I saw it I went WTF?! What is that doing in there? :-O The feeling that I had, upon opening that chest, was embarrassment and shame. These feelings were compounded when others shared the amazing things they found. Angels, scrolls, pearls are just a few of the wonderful treasures I remember other students finding.

Now we are in the 4th trio at the end of that night where we are cycling through on the quality and affirmation to help each other to explore and refine. In my trio we were all confused and I told them not to look to me for help because I was clueless. Amazingly, we hit a GROOVE. Suddenly my trio mates were really coming into clarity and when I was the last to hit the client chair I am even more confused and scared because I STILL have no idea what is going on. And I am lost to my quality and affirmation.

Now I am freaking out because I am more lost than ever! So my counselor is trying to help me understand my quality and design my affirmation and I'm stuttering and stammering trying to explain what I'm feeling but totally lost for words on how to explain it!

My teachers talk about how you always end up in the perfect trio for what you need out of that particular exercise, so my counselor asks the perfect question in my total confusion:

"Well, you never told us what was in your treasure chest. What did you find?"

"Well, I wasn't really going to mention it because I was kind of embarrassed by it. It was one of my favorite gifts from when I was 8 or 9 years old. "

So I set to explain it. This gift was something I received from my Aunt Bell for Christmas. My sister and I came home from her house and my mom wanted to see our gifts. So she's going through our stuff and I pull out this gift I loved so much. I hand it to her all proud:

Mom, look what Aunt Bell gave me!

OMG, how disgusting!

With that she threw it in the trash and it broke I had come to realize this is where my feeling of embarrassment and shame came from as truly I'm not embarrassed by what I found. I LOVED THIS GIFT. This gift was a plaster mold of a mouth and it was painted. I believe this was the Rolling Stone mouth, but when I opened the treasure chest it was the caricature of Chaka Khan's mouth and she is my most favorite female singer EVER:

So I describe this to my counselor and then he asks, of course, the perfect follow up question:

Well you keep saying that work was coming up but that it's not about work. What kind of work do you want to do in the future?

(my hands to my heart) Oh my God! I want to work with victims and survivors of domestic violence. I want....

And then I had my EPIPHANY! My eyes widened and I got all excited and I started crazily telling my trio mates that I understood the gift in the treasure chest and that it represents my quality, which to this point has totally eluded me. My quality is my VOICE!!!!! The Chaka Khan mouth was the symbolic representation of it! I was looking at it literally and I couldn't understand this old gift and why it surfaced. But now it made total sense.

Then I had ANOTHER Epiphany.

Oh my God you guys! In the work I want to do, I will be using my voice to reach those in need. As an advocate I will be the voice of the voiceless and the whole purpose of advocacy is to help others to find their voice. In the meditation I actually picked up the gift and the fact that I could hold it means that I can give it to someone else!!!!

OK, I cannot sufficiently explain with words how hardcore this was for me and how HARD it smacked me in the head! Last weekend a woman explained her "light bulb moment" as being hit with a Cosmic 2 X 4. That's what this experience was for me! Totally.

The next day we go into our first guided meditation. As we were guided, at first nothing came forward for me. Then I heard a woman mourning. This set off my vision. Before I explain the vision, I want to explain the story behind it.

This is my first memory in life. I am at least 4, possibly 3, and I remember hearing yelling and screaming. I got out of bed and walked into our hallway in time to see my dad slap my mom across the face, hard enough to knock her glasses off and into the bathtub. I started screaming and crying telling my dad not to hit my mother. He just turned and looked at me with rage and shut the bathroom door.

When he shut the door, my fingers were in the door jamb and I screamed bloody murder in pain. My dad threw open the door and I will never forget the look on their faces. My mom had the startled "My baby is hurt and I need to get to him" kind of look but she couldn't help me because my dad was standing in her way and she is absolutely blind without her glasses. My dad has snapped out of his rage for a couple of moments and his expression was like "What have I done to my child". I said to my dad "why did you shut the door on my fingers". He said "Your mother did it". I said "No she didn't. You did. I saw you", and with that he just shut the door and continued to beat her.

When I heard the fellow student mourning, that set off my vision in the guided meditation and I began to weep as I went through it. In the vision, I am my age now (39) and I have walked into my house. There are no lights on but the early morning light coming through the cracks in the curtains has lit up the place enough for me to see my way.

In the real life memory of that fight, I don't remember anything past the shutting of the door. I don't remember them stopping, I don't remember going back to bed. But in the vision when I walked back into the house, I know I have returned to my first life memory because I can hear the fighting in the bathroom.

So I walk to the hallway and when I turn, my 4 year old self is standing there looking right up at me, as if I (4) expected me (39) to be there. I looked down at my child and when I did I was holding the Chaka gift from the treasure chest in my hands. No words were said in this entire experience but I handed the gift to myself and I bent down and hugged my child. Then I turned and walked out of the house.

As I was coming back into myself and grounding myself from the guided meditation, I realized something. I understood that the inner child is the one that placed the gift in my treasure chest for me to find and that I had my healing in me the whole time. And how this gift is relevant to the memory, is that at that time I did not have a voice or at least I had no way to use it to stop that situation.

The levels of mind-blowing that this was/is for me is hard to put down in writing. I almost feel like it isn't enough to fully explain how much this means to me.[Edited 3/19/10 18:17pm]

Fast forward to Sunday 12/6/09 and we did our second guided meditation. I did not know where this would lead me but this weekend was very powerful for me as I really got in touch with a lot of painful things and gave love and light to those situations.

So this guided meditation found me on, probably, one of the worst day of my life and there were many during the 3 years I spent in hell with my ex. This was, of course, a fight.

That day I had come home and my boyfriend was sitting in the living room doing something but his back was to me as I came inside so I couldn't see what it was he was doing.

When I came past on the side of him, I saw that he had my CDs and was snapping them one by one into a pile on the floor. So he was doing all this while I was gone, flipping out by himself. So I knew at this point I couldn't react because it would be really bad if I did. So I go to the closet to change my clothes and he followed me in the bedroom telling me all these evil things. Still I did not react.

Then he tore my favorite poster, that I searched high and low to find. When he did I reacted and he attacked me, pinning me on the bed. He was choking me with one hand and slapping me in the face with the other yelling and screaming "look what you made me do". I didn't know if I was going to die, I was so scared. Eventually he got up off me and went raving through the house and he left. I just laid there sobbing in disbelief that this was my life.

Well this was the memory that the guided meditation from yesterday took me to. In the meditation, I entered the apartment after my raving ex had left. I was not alone though. With me was my inner child, the 4 year old that I met in the first guided meditation. In his hands was the Chaka gift from the treasure chest.

We entered the room where I (23) was laying, sobbing on the bed. I sat down on one side and my child sat down on the other. We each laid a hand on myself and let him cry. At first I (23) was not outwardly aware of the presence of my selves, but I know inwardly I felt my selves there. In the vision, I am separate from all this and watching it unfold.

when the sobbing subsided, my inner child handed the treasure chest gift to me (23) and we played my song from my most recent homework assignment. In the assignment we were to choose a song that best represented to us, our quality and also to choose a quote. The quote I'll discuss later, but the song I chose is Chaka Khan's "Walking in the Sun:

Things have been goin wrong, long enough to know
Everything is right
Been walkin in the dark, long enough to know,
I finally seen the light
Been losin, long enough to know,
When I finally won

And even a Blind Man can tell when he's walkin in the Sun....

I've cried enough tears to know,
This Feeling's called a smile
I've been bottom rung, long enough to know
When I'm doin it in style
Been runnin, long enough to know
There's no more need to run

And even a Blind Man can tell when he's walking in the Sun....

Oh, the wind is at my back
And I'm sailing on a ship that's overdue
Well I've blown so many chances
I aint gonna blow this one with you
Seen enough bad times to know
Good times, have begun

And even a Blind Man can tell when he's walking in the Sun....

I (39) told myself (23) how one day I would not be living that life. That I would one day be writing and creating my perfect husband on an ideal scene. I told myself of all the magic I would find in my life and that I would be happy and strong. I told myself that I would find a school called USM where I could love with all my heart and that I would be loved back in equal measures. I (4) agreed, not verbally but with my heart. We were so tender with me, we sat and held the space of love around myself. It was so beautiful and so healing. My child and I left myself(23) with the Chaka treasure gift and the song.[Edited 5/14/13 18:23pm]

OK, there are so many levels of why this meditation is so incredibly and beautifully healing. During that relationship, there was one time I was with my ex and we were driving somewhere. We played a tape I had made for him and when it went through both sides, I popped in a tape I made for myself. The first song to play was Chaka Khan and the song begins with one of her trademark high notes. As soon as that came through the speakers, my ex slapped me hard in the face and pushed the tape out yelling that he hated her.

Another of our biggest fights involved her as well. We were at a party and my best friend and I were on this long lounge chair and Chaka Khan's "Tell Me Somethin Good" was playing through the sound system and my friend and I were just sitting there singing and having a great time. Seeing that my ex demanded we leave. He hated when I was having a good time. He left and I stayed and when we got home he wouldn't let me in. I kept knocking and he opened the door and pulled me in on the couch and went to hit me and my friend jumped in and then we left.

When I was with my ex, I basically had to listen to her in secret. Finally I left that relationship and went back home. He had moved in some guy he was cheating on me with during the last 6 months we were together. Finally they left the apartment and I moved back in. At this time I was needing to rebuild my music collection. I only had one or 2 of Chaka's CDs and absolutely nothing of her old albums, including the one that has "Tell Me Somethin Good" on it. I never had those old albums. When I looked for them at the store, all I could find was her most recent solo projects. None of the old stuff.

When I started living at that apartment I had virtually nothing. I had a little couch, which I slept on and a little dresser for my clothes. I had a stereo that I bought from a co-worker for really cheap and a little TV. I had my cats too. That was basically all I had.

Well one day I went to Tower Records and I was looking for some Prince CDs and as I browsed further, I saw Chaka Khan on a CD cover! But it was in the "R" section. That is when I discovered the reason why I never found those old albums. Back then she was with the band Rufus! So I bought virtually her whole back catalogue at once and now that I wasn't living with my ex boyfriend, I listened to her constantly and as much and as loud as I wanted!

So you see, my child and now my 23 year old self placed my gift in the treasure chest for me to find. My 23 year old self had the gift and held it close to his heart all these years so I would know and understand why that gift showed up in the treasure chest at 39 years of age.

During one of our 5 minute peace meditations I went back on that beach with the treasure chest and opened it up to find the Chaka gift and when I pulled it out it was glowing a golden glow and the light was just filling the whole sky. I pulled the gift close to my heart and it melted into my skin and became written on my heart. I am my own Trinity. This is my inner Trio.

I have decided that I am going to get this very tattoo on my heart for my 40th birthday!

I belong to a Public Speaking Group Called Heart Centered Speakers and I have given many presentations, most of them on the power of forgiveness. I have told my story and about the death of my cousin and I know that USM is the platform from which I am going to dive head first into the next part of my life which will involve, among other things, speaking with and bringing healing light to people in or who are coming out of abusive lives.

Originally I had not intended to apply for the program this year. I was letting all the little chatter dictate the story. I received a call from the school and they asked why they hadn't heard from me. I told them that it was too late and they gave me a very small window to complete the process, which I did.

Before I left to turn in my application for this school, I sat with this deck that I have called the Inner Child Deck. It's a fairy tale tarot. I sat with the deck and prayed for a little bit and I said that I wanted to pull a card that represented my intentions for going to this school. My intentions were to find my healing and to come to the place that would bring me into the next part of my life, the path that has been galvanized by my cousin's death which was due to complications from an injury she received from an assault by her boyfriend.

Before I reveal the card I pulled, I must tell about the very first card I pulled from any deck ever:

This card is of a merman and a mermaid, holding sacred hearts. They are connected by a rainbow and 2 dolphins are leaping over it in unison and joy. This card represents balance and marriage in all its forms, including marriage to a higher awakening. In the book that comes with this deck, for this card it states at the end:

"Remember that your own heart can be a rainbow bridge of living color and light, linking you to the source of the Divine Child within and helping you heal old wounds in the heart of a loved one". [/quote]

I pulled that card in January of this year. The FIRST person I thought of was my cousin, but she was already passed and I didn't understand how I could possibly heal wounds in her heart since she wasn't here anymore.

Well the very next time I went to my speaking group we pulled 2 cards each from a basket of over 150 cards. I pulled mine, went up to the podium and gasped

Oh My God you guys! Before I show these cards, I have to tell you about the last card I pulled!!!

I described the 2 of Hearts and then revealed my cards. The first one was a Mermaid, and the second one a whale! Now the mermaid is being confirmed and I feel like my cousin is trying to speak to me.

The very next time I pulled a card, I saw in my inner vision that the card was touching my pinky. I reached in, fiddled around to determine which card it was and then I pulled it. When I turned it over, I was overwhelmed. On it was a little merbaby. It was cradled in a giant clam shell and it was on its side sleeping. The caption on the top of the card said "Rest". This merbaby was a little boy. When my cousin died, she was 6 months pregnant with a baby boy.....
So now I am pulling this card before I go to turn in my application for USM and when I turned it over I started to cry. Here is the card:

Again, the mermaid. And look, she is pulling out a winged heart from a TREASURE CHEST! I had absolutely no idea we would be doing that treasure chest meditation at school. I didn't even know meditation would be incorporated into our education. Of the 74 cards in the deck, only 2 of them have a treasure chest. Only this one is open.... There are so many other things that speak to me about this card but after we came out of the weekend and the epiphanies I had over that treasure chest experience, I was just stunned that God is so good to confirm things this way.

At first I resisted looking in the book to read the meaning. I wanted the card to mean what it means to me. But, of course, curiosity got the best of me and I read it. When I did, I couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing:

"Often during our darkest hours, there is a need for reflection and rest, represented in this card by the sea turtles, the calm ocean and the crescent Moon. Then, suddenly, something magical can happen. the mermaid of the Four of Hearts who experiences sorrow and hopeless feelings opens a treasure chest in the Five of Hearts and is offered a special Winged Heart.....In this card the mermaid is experiencing a change of heart: She is healing the wounds of the past"

O. M. G! That first Card (The Two of Hearts) is the intention of the healing. This card is the manifestation of that intention. The Two of Hearts intends to heal, The Five of Hearts is the act of healing. One of the ways that I approached my cousin's death was not to allow it to throw me from my path. Instead I have embraced her and brought her with me. The way that I know I am to make sense of her death is by sharing my past, her death and how I have been brought to healing. In this way, her death is not in vain. In this way she has given me so many incredibly beautiful gifts.

In the book explaining this Five of Hearts, the Four of Hearts is referenced. Of course, I was too curious not to see this card. When I looked at it, I was again, incredibly moved because of what it made me feel about my cousin's death. In the book for the Four of Hearts it states:

"Sunken treasures, lost hopes, broken hearts, and tearful goodbyes are all aspects of the emotional journey one must encounter in life. Though these times are painful, the ever transforming tides of hope exist within them. A broken heart is an open heart. When we are willing to allow deep emotions to flow, there is invariably a gift of love at the other side. Sorrow brings the tidings of joy. This is the bittersweet aspect of Love.

The gentle mermaid in this card has lost her hope. The boat she was guiding during a storm has sunk, and her Winged Heart locket is broken. In time, she will look up and see her three friends, riding on dolphins, coming to her rescue. What seems lost will be regained as she reconstructs and discovers a new foundation of faith and hope in herself and in life..... "

This is just so BEAUTIFUL to me. On Sunday at school (12/06/09), I discussed my cousin's death in depth for the first time. I have mentioned it in other trios but I never specifically focused on it by itself in any of our exercises. One of the things that has plagued me since she died was that I never had the chance to let her know that I lived the life she lived and that I came out of it.

At her wake, I placed the article I wrote about my abusive relationship (which changed my life and is what brought me on my beautiful path) in the casket as a gesture towards her eternal peace and healing. I was about to tell my partners how never being able to let her know we had this experience in common really has plagued me and then I remembered something.

In my late 20s I reconnected with my aunt and cousins after not having seen them for a very long time. My aunt asked if I was dating anybody and I told her no and she asked about my ex, who I had brought to Thanksgiving one year. I told them as a group how I was abused and how I left. So she did know. I didn't have the whole sit down one-on-one talk that I wish I had, however this brings such a new hope to me that in her experiences where she was being abused, that she thought of me. In this way, I was with her. I haven't remembered that memory for the last 3 3/4 years since she died. I feel like she brought that memory to me to let me know she is healing and that she is with me.

During lunch yesterday, I showed this card to a lunch mate and she pointed out that it looks like the mermaid is cradling a baby in her hair!!!!! The way she is holding it, looks like she is cradling and that she is protecting it and talking gently to it. My cousin, as I mentioned before, was pregnant with a baby boy when she died. I hadn't noticed this before!!

What I love about the 3 mermaids riding in to help is that, especially now, it represents the whole intention of what our trios are all about. During those exercises we are one with one another. Through that oneness, we carry each other in our hearts as we go through our lives. When we are in the position to use everything we've learned, which is primarily through the experience of the trios, we aren't doing it alone. We are doing it with everyone we've worked with. One person becomes many through the love that is shared at our school.

The gratitude I feel in my heart to be at USM, is almost inexpressable. In the first night, we were asked what we expected to achieve after the first year of class. I spoke and I said that I wanted to Reclaim my Unstoppable Joy. I didn't even have to wait one day. That first night filled me with such a happiness I haven't experienced in the longest time. Now as we come out of this third month, the JOY I feel when I am in class is beyond what I imagined I could possibly find a year later. I am so thankful to God and to my class and to the wonderful staff and to my beautiful teachers, for being a part of my life. I am so blessed, beyond words.....

Even after all this, I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface of how meaningful it is to me that my gift was revealed this way and that my favorite Chaka was the gateway to that discovery. Just unbelievable.

I mentioned that I used a quote for my homework. In the Televised special "BeBe King's "A Blues Session: BeBe King and Friends", there is a performance of "Aint Nobody's Business" featuring Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan and Etta James.

During this performance each singer sings two solos. Before Chaka's second solo, BeBe proclaims

"Do What You want ANYTHING YOU WANT!

Then, CHAKA TEARS THE HOUSE DOOOOOWWWWNNNNN

X INFINITY

Don't you know it aint NO BODY'S BUSINESS, IF I DO, IF I DO....

What this quote, along with the performance that follows, inspires in me is open rebellion against the past! This is the work all of us are doing at my school. We are unlearning who we thought we were and learning ourselves in truth. I identify so fiercely with the bold, brave and brilliant nature of that statement. In the past, many of us were made weak, but we are beginning to know our truth and the lies, fear and darkness will present themselves to remind us of their existence but we can Do what we want, ANYTHING WE WANT! We are and we will!

Well goodness, if it isn't clear HOW MUCH I love Chaka Khan, then you might as well just lock the thread right now! What God gave this woman is staggering. How can someone breathe in air and that sound come out of their mouth? I wax so philosophic when I think of her. My biggest dream in life is to sing. However, I don’t have that great a voice. I can only work with what I got However I do sing for my own pleasure. What she does when she is singing, well, I feel that inside. I just can't bring it out of myself. Thankfully God created Yvette Stevens to do the job that I'll never be able to do.

However, my gift from the treasure chest is the Representation of this Woman, this Force of Nature. And it came full circle for me. Finding the gift, loving and healing myself during two events that have marked who I am. I am cleansing those stains. I am the embodiment of the nature of that gift. I am a Force of Nature myself. There is absolutely nothing that I cannot have and nothing that I cannot do with this gift of Voice that god gave me. I want to share just one last thing from my homework. I know my quality, my affirmation and we were asked to define the quality.

My Quality: My Voice!

My Affirmation: I am strong and glorious, the infinite beacon of my heart’s voice leading humanity from darkness and into brilliant, pure light. I sing my songs in joyful worship and service to the worth of God’s Magnificent Creations!

Definition:

“My”: abbr. Million Years. (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary)

“Voice”: The power or ability to produce musical tones. (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary)

“My”, defined, typically represents ownership or possession, however when I saw “Million Years”, I was SOLD! This made me understand why I included this on my ideal scene for art. To me speaking is art, and the essence of communication can be like a spiritual song. Even if that isn’t the outward action, this is how it feels for me.

When speaking from the heart and to the heart, our voice becomes an infinite recording that plays in the minds and hearts of those we seek to touch with our love. That infinite recording of Love then causes others to speak from and to the heart and the song goes on and on and on…. God is Love; therefore we are able to become one with the essence of the Universe when raising our voices towards healing and light!

All of this was inside me and I didn't know it. My beautiful teachers and this amazing school helped me to find my inner treasures which are leading me to my healing. Thank you God for sharing this woman with the world. Thank you for the way I carried her music close to my heart all these years. I am so grateful for the ability I possess and for the path that my past has led me to.

What a beautiful revelation. I knew the mouth would become a tattoo but it’s great that it has a deep personal meaning to you as well as ties into Chaka.
And I love how you discovered her under the ‘R’ section by accident!

I have been considering getting more of her music--I don’t have much--but don’t know where to begin.

wow and I mean really wow because I really just remembered how that album that Rufus album played a large part in my life one summer when it was new.

all I remember is pain from that time, the memories are unclear, dim, but just thinking about that time brought tears to my eyes, then I rmember hearing that album over and over again and how it comforted me.

it's warm in here, is anybody else feeling warm?

oh wait it's the light that is shining on me.

I love you baby. so much more than I can explain right now.

We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.
Maya Angelou

What a beautiful revelation. I knew the mouth would become a tattoo but it’s great that it has a deep personal meaning to you as well as ties into Chaka.
And I love how you discovered her under the ‘R’ section by accident!

I have been considering getting more of her music--I don’t have much--but don’t know where to begin.

Skip her solo stuff and go DIRECTLY TO THE BEGINNING

Leaving Rufus was the biggest mistake of her career. That band had scary talent and they knew how to write music that matched her lethality. Nobody else she worked with truly understood who she is. It shows in the material.

This is their first album:

There are some really nice moments here but nothing on here really prepares you for the ONSLAUGHT that followed....

"Rags to Rufus"

Opens so absolutely ridiculously

I mean let's just give "tearin it up" a whole new definition

"Walkin in the Sun" comes from this album So is Tell Me Somethin Good

Rufusized

WORK IT POCAHONTAS!

Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan

Yeah, ya best to recognize your shining Diamond!

This is my favorite for very personal reasons. This is one of those albums I discovered when I moved back into that apartment, yes in the "R" section I lost track of it as I moved around but reconnected nearly 4 years ago when I went to visit my friends in Michigan, 3 months after my cousin died. How personal it became then....

You gotta love those fake performances from Soul Train But look at the background of the stage! I swear when I get back into an apartment proper I am devoting an ENTIRE WALL in that way!

Now I know you aint goin nowhere, not yet you aren't!

Ask Rufus

Have I mentioned the HAIR yet?

this kind of voodoo's hard to find....

Street Player

Then you get this absolute MASTERPIECE:

Interstingly, this is the album I know least about. I never really connected fully so I think I'll be giving this a spin soon. But "Stay" is one of my favorite Chaka Songs

Well I think I'll let Harlepolis take over from here. She'll manage her solo career better than I will The first couple of Solo's stayed pretty true to the spirit of the career she had built up to this point, however for me it dropped off from there. Kind of like the few gems we know we can expect from Prince because he is Prince but never fully laying down the law like you KNOW. THEY. COULD

You know I realize most of the stuff I like is from the Rufus era. I didn't realize how much I liked Stay until I saw Erykah do the tribute. Of course Clouds from club days is a gem. I just love the chorus and the music. I have to delve into these because I think this is where the heart of my love for her comes from.

You know I realize most of the stuff I like is from the Rufus era. I didn't realize how much I liked Stay until I saw Erykah do the tribute. Of course Clouds from club days is a gem. I just love the chorus and the music. I have to delve into these because I think this is where the heart of my love for her comes from.

The shit is straight out stank sick! This collection is such an anchor for my spirit

You know I realize most of the stuff I like is from the Rufus era. I didn't realize how much I liked Stay until I saw Erykah do the tribute. Of course Clouds from club days is a gem. I just love the chorus and the music. I have to delve into these because I think this is where the heart of my love for her comes from.

She wrote her most precious gems along with her then lover/Rufus member Tony Maiden.

They could've been the next Ashford & Simpon if have they been so damn consistent.

I knew there was something powerful when Sleep On It came through the Ipod shuffle during a VERY dark moment of the day(depressive alert) while I was taking a break from my homework and suddenly I was immune to the pain I felt at the time,,,,I kid you not, this is true.

The more I get older, the more I realize why my mother is such a Chaka lover,,,,,I love my mother's commentary on music, I remember when she said to me during Chaka's Roll Me Through The Rushes(Like Moses). "Listen. Nobody scream like that for the fun of it, this is way deeper than what she wanted to convey in the 1st place, you get the feeling that she's calling for somebody else who's not physical".

It was a drastic change from then on,,,,,I really credit my mom for showing me how to listen without prejudice, had it not been for her, I'd never been this lucky